Translated ballots not available at most of state's polls

Sep. 1, 2012

Written by

Ben Jones

Gannett Wisconsin Media

About the law

The federal Voting Rights Act requires communities to provide language assistance for people who don’t understand English adequately enough to vote. The law covers communities “where there are more than 10,000 or over 5 percent of the total voting-age citizens in a single political subdivision (usually a county, but a township or municipality in some states) who are members of a single minority language group, have depressed literacy rates, and do not speak English very well,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. For communities that exceed that threshold, all election information provided in English must be translated, and election workers should also provide information orally in the covered language. There are 248 covered communities across the country. Milwaukee is the only one in Wisconsin. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Justice

Non-English speakers

The U.S. Census American Community Survey estimated thatin 2010, Wisconsin’s population included 170,457 people who spoke English “less than well.” Of those residents, nearly 105,000 spoke Spanish as theirprimary language. This chart reflects non-English speakers(5 years and older) in select cities.

City

Spanish as primary language

Other languages

Appleton

1,366

1,658

Fond du Lac

690

316

Green Bay

5,358

1,481

Madison

5,464

7,767

Manitowoc

391

814

Marshfield

80

114

Milwaukee

36,669

10,899

Oshkosh

535

950

Sheboygan

1,833

1,419

Stevens Point

173

486

Wausau

168

1,763

Wisconsin Rapids

126

230

Translated
language
materials online

The state Government Accountability Board has posted election-related materials translated into Hmong and Spanish. English and Hmong forms can be found online at gab.wi.gov/forms/voters.Spanish materials are at gab.wi.gov/forms/spanish.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

MADISON — Wisconsin voters who don’t speak English could face a challenge much greater than deciding on a candidate in the presidential election in November.

Despite the presence of tens of thousands of non-English-speaking residents elsewhere in the state, only one city — Milwaukee — is required to provide translated ballots, election forms and bilingual poll workers.

That’s because the number of non-English-speaking residents there is high enough to trigger the federal requirement. Based on 2010 census data, about 47,500 Milwaukee residents spoke primarily a language other than English. Of those, Spanish speakers accounted for 37,000.

However, the balance of the state’s estimated 170,000 non-English-speaking residents don’t live in Milwaukee. They reside in places like Appleton or Sheboygan or Wausau, where officials are not required to provide bilingual support at the ballot box.

That doesn’t seem right to Stacy Harbaugh, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

“If you are a citizen, you can vote. It’s one of our most basic rights,” she said. “If you are a citizen who doesn’t speak English as a primary language, you still have the right to vote.”

Harbaugh said the principle is simple: “Being able to cast a ballot in the language you are most comfortable speaking, it’s a way of empowering all citizens to be able to participate in our democracy.”

But Karen Davenport, a spokeswoman for U.S. English, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates making English the nation’s official language, said the government shouldn’t be in the business of translating election forms.

“Rather than providing foreign language translation, the government should instead focus on providing resources that would help non-English speakers learn the common language of America, which is English,” Davenport said.

By translating materials only into certain languages, the government is dividing the country, she said, and delaying the assimilation process for people who don’t speak English.

Language barriers

Milwaukee began providing special support to Spanish-speaking voters this year based on the Federal Voting Rights Act requirement. The trigger is met if a city has more than 10,000 non-English speakers from a single language group, or has a single language group comprising more than 5 percent of the voting-age population.

Neil Albrecht, executive director of the Milwaukee Elections Commission, said the city now translates ballots and signs at polling places and employs bilingual poll workers.

“Our goal is to make our sites as accessible as possible, not have language barriers that prevent a person from voting,” Albrecht said.

The voting process is different in Green Bay, which had about 6,800 people who weren’t proficient in English in 2010, according to Census Bureau standards. City Clerk Kris Teske said bilingual ballots or forms are not provided.

“(Voters) usually bring someone that can interpret,” Teske said. “... It might be their 10-year-old child.”

Teske said she doesn’t think there are a lot of non-English-speaking voters seeking support at the polling places. Her city used to keep some translated forms on hand but most went unused.

Appleton, with about 3,000 residents who don’t speak English, does not translate ballots. But there is a community member who helps Hmong voters navigate the polling sites, City Clerk Charlene Peterson said.

Peterson said the city hasn’t seen Latino voters seeking support. “If they did vote, there wasn’t a language barrier.”

State efforts

The state Elections Board provides help on its website, where voters or clerks can download forms translated to Hmong and Spanish.

But, this past week, Gannett Wisconsin Media found that a translated absentee ballot request form on the site had not been updated since 2005 and didn’t include correct statutory language regarding residency. State law requires that a voter live in a place for 28 days before being eligible. The previous requirement was 10 days. The translated forms also contained no instructions, unlike the English versions.

(Page 3 of 3)

After Gannett Wisconsin Media asked about the forms, the state agency posted updated and additional material, such as notices and posters in Spanish related to election fraud, crossover voting and voting challenges.

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the state Elections Board, said the agency had planned to post the updated materials. The agency is not required to post the forms but has done so for many years, he said.

“We took (this action) proactively because we knew there were Spanish and Hmong voters out there and we needed to do as much as possible to accommodate them,” Magney said. “I know that our clerks do everything they can within their resources to accommodate any kind of voter who has special needs.”

Voter protections

Terry Ao, director of census and voting programs for the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C., said the voting process can be complicated even for native English speakers.

“It can become just that much more complicated and intimidating for people who have language proficiency concerns,” she said.

Ao said that though the Voting Rights Act doesn’t require all places to provide bilingual support, other areas of the law provide broader voter protections, for example, against discrimination or raising barriers for voters who bring a translator to the polling place.

Problems sometimes arise when poll workers aren’t familiar with the law, Ao said. “Voters may be denied their right, just because of confusion at the polls.”